Dear Readers,

Years ago when my husband wrote for a New York newspaper, The Herald Tribune, he brought home a clipping from an Australian newspaper about a man who was trapped in a rain sewer and held captive for five days by a gang of little children. That’s all. It was only one paragraph, but it fascinated me and stayed in my mind all this time. I didn’t do anything about it for years and then about four years ago, I began to put together a story. And the story grew until it became The Little Crew of Butchers .

-FP